Soundtrack2

Posts Tagged ‘Slowdive’

The Horrors, Los Planetas, Elika, Lab Partners, Brian Jonestown Massacre & more

Photo by Phil Askew, Luminouslives.com

Break out the beads and kaftans! We’re kicking things off with a journey into psych, followed by shoegaze classics and whatnot. Enjoy!

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1.   Lab Partners – Magnify

Dayton crew starts us off with some driving overloaded psych riffage.

2.   The Tamborines – Black And Blue

Ringing indie pop outta London.

3.   The Warlocks – The Dope Feels Good

Soundtrack to a “drug party scene” in a bad 60s movie shot in an LA flophouse.

4.   Sleepmask – Black Depression Blues

Love and Rockets via Simple Minds. Okay, that was a lazy comparison.

5.   The Red Plastic Buddha – Daisy Love

Chicago band strums some sunny sunshine psych-pop that brings BJM to mind. See below…

6.   The Volta Sound – The Ride

Ohio band channelling some sweet Velvet Underground.

7.   The Brian Jonestown Massacre – Illuminomi

A hippy gem off their latest compilation. Complete, with flutes, vibes, and- is Anton singing in French?

8.   The Horrors – Endless Blue

And now for something different from the brilliant Skying album. Just wait for the killer dark shoegaze assault at 1:40.

9.   The Voices – West Coast Turnaround

I live for murky extended jams like this one from their excellent Death Of A Lover’s Song.

10.  Los Planetas – La Caja Del Diablo

Head trip from Granada, Spain.

11.  Fleeting Joys – You Are The Darkness

Classic recent-wave shoegaze from this band’s great Occult Radiance.

12.  Philip James – Nostalgia

Local boy mixes waves of guitar noise with lots of vocal reverb. Gets in your head, this one.

13.  Chapterhouse – Pearl

One of the all-time shoegaze classics, and we wait 80 episodes to play it! Had to be done.

14.  Slowdive – Good Day Sunshine

A mysterious, drifting tune very ahead of its time when it came out in ’93.

15.  Elika – You’re Not Safe At All

Beautiful ballad with washes of guitar noise over gently insistent vocals.

16.  Nowhere Again – Hardman Square

Any band with a name that brings to mind both The Secret Machines and Ride will get a listen from me. Vibe is Portishead with Beth Orton-style vox.

Ride. The Jesus and Mary Chain. My Bloody Valentine. The Pastels. The Boo Radleys. Swervedriver. Slowdive. The House of Love. Adorable. The Telescopes.

What do all these bands have in common?

They all released records with Alan McGee’s Creation Records. Check out the Upside Down trailer. DVD will be available in May.

Autolux, The Blanket Ghost, Collider, The Boo Radleys, No Joy & more

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1. Bottle Of Evil – Conversation

Dreamy Scottish indie. Feeling a bit of Doves here but not sure why.

2. Slowdive – 40 Days

Working in some more classics. We haven’t played this band since the very first episode – criminal! Timeless and lovely.

3. Anne – Summer Babies

Vocals remind me of Duncan Sheik (!) but this dream pop off their Demo is first rate.

4. The Blanket Ghost – l o o k a t t h e s t a r s

Cool off-kilter noise pop. With a name using the required words “Ghost”, “Crystal” or “Girls”, these guys are sure to make it big.

5. Autolux – Supertoys

Yes. Transit Transit is out August 3 and it looks they haven’t lost their touch over the years.

6. The Boo Radleys – Rodney King

Another neglected ST2 fave. Love this track’s distorted groove from their masterpiece Giant Steps.

7. Bloody Knives – Hands Around My Neck

Glam-gaze from those weird kids in Austin.

8. Collider – !Ex Ex!

Righteous melodic shoegaze rock and roll from the fantastic Strobos EP, available on their Bandcamp.

9. Weed Hounds – Skating Away From The Cops

C86-inspired anthem by New Yorkan band. More please.

10. Caucus – Sing (Half Dreaming)

Came across this nice pop track off the great Half Dreaming Asian shoegaze comp. Pretty good English singing for a Japanese band!

11. The Morning After Girls – Death Processions

Last year’s Alone yielded some good tunes, but loud dark arena rock and roll fans should turn this one up.

12.  Cherryblades – Everyday Is Extreme

Cross Hüsker Dü, R.E.M. and Wire and you have this 90s band.

13. Amazing Baby – Head Dress

Baroque melodic Britpop  from Brooklyn with some nice glam guitar. Better than it sounds.

14. The High Dials – Book Of The Dead

Light psych that’s hooked me since first seeing them as mainly-mod The Datsons. Off this year’s good Moon Country album.

15. No Joy – No Joy

Hard to pin this one down. Loud, distorted Archers of Loaf-indebted rock.

16. Turzi – Baltimore

Party like it’s 1993 with this Bobby Gillespie-guested big beat track. Also better than it sounds.

17. How To Destroy Angels – Parasite

You-know-who brings the broken dark noise. Been kicking this around for a while now…pick up the free EP on his site.

18. Indian Jewelry – Lost My Sight

Swirl in to the dark digital void with this pummeling trance psychedelia. And for the last time – better than it sounds.

A few weeks back, Drowned In Sound did a full week of posts on a type of music we like a lot. Yep, shoegaze.

Digesting it all hasn’t been easy. Particularly since it inspired us to discover tons of new stuff. We’ve recapped a lot of what they discussed and encourage you to click on the links to find out more.

DiS starts with an overview of the genre, then dives into interviews with pioneer Neil Halstead (Slowdive, Mojave3) and current leading light Ulrich Schnauss. Like virtually everyone, they don’t like pigeonholed into representing — or playing — just one type of music.

Ulrich sums it up: “I still feel like I’ve only just started and am still in the process of developing the basics of my ‘musical language’…slowly, over the years I feel like I’m getting closer to a sound that is not so heavily dependent on taking ingredients from the music I grew up with.”

If interviews are your thing, be sure to check out the one with Mark Gardener of Ride (unofficial site) and Adam Franklin of Swervedriver, two of Soundtrack2′s all-time favourite bands.

The new psychedelia

I was struck by something Northern Star Records boss Scott Causer said -  that shoegaze acts are an extension of psychedelia. It’s no revelation, but when people think of psych bands, many that spring to mind are the ones that imitate the late 60s/early 70s sound.

I feel shoegaze of the late 80s and 90s continued to evolve psychedelic music, and today’s best bands are evolving it further. If you’d like to go even deeper into the discuss of what is and what isn’t shoegaze, go for the interview with Andy Oliver of the Third Wave Collective.

Goodies galore

See here for some drool-worthy takeaways:

• Free Northern Star sampler including brilliant Nova Saints track
  
• Unconventional list of 5 shoegaze albums everyone should own – including Canada’s own Southpacific!
• 50 essential shoegaze albums on Spotify
• Shoegaze mixtape of best 40 tracks

Of course I don’t agree with a lot of the selections, but if you read the comments, neither does anyone else!

To me, that’s a sign of great music – it inspires people to talk about it into the wee hours.

Cheers DiS!

Swervedriver, Giant Drag, Ride, Jesus and Mary Chain, Young Galaxy & more.

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